It is our patriotic duty to say ouch when we do not like government action, to protest, to try to vote the madness out of office; thus, to try to heal the government when it gets sick, so that citizens like Joe Slack do not loose the struggle and go off into madness as a result.

Joe Slack stopped treating the infected government as if it were a disease, and in his mind began to treat it as an evil personal attack by other fellow citizens upon him personally.

That is not real.

The IRS employees he could have killed are doing their jobs, following regulations, and following statutes.

When they don't, the remedy is the court system, appeals, and complaints to government:

The right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights, and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each state to the citizens of all other states to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by the Federal Constitution.

(Chambers v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 207 U.S. 142, 148, emphasis added). We have an obligation to heal one another with our laws and with reason; we all must be doctors and nurses in that sense.

Stay in the sense, avoid the toxins, and avoid the nonsense, as we try to fix our broken government.

9 comments:

By all accounts so far a pretty "normal" guy. Middle class, educated, and engaged with the world; no isolated, embittered, religious fundamentalist here. When the Joe Stack's of this world start going over the edge, it's probably time to sit up and take notice.

Unfortunately as his suicide note said, "I have no doubt that it will continue to be anything but business as usual." That kind of says it all right there IMO. The machine is bigger than us all, and you can fight it all you like, but it AIN'T gonna change, at least not for the better.

He was right about that. Other than prompting the bureaucracy to spend millions of more dollars it doesn't have to enact even more stringent regulations to prevent acts that are largely unpreventable in a free society, his death will simply be old news in a week or so, and he will be simply dead and forgotten.

Yep, and the fundamentals for the next crash are already in place. That might increase their ranks two fold at least. There is going to be MUCH ugliness ahead. Fractured politics, a dysfunctional government, and a whole lot of hopeless people with a whole lot of time on their hands. Unfortunately for us, unlike the Soviet Union before us, Americans are not known for their stoicism. We're pretty damn demonstrative when we're pissed off, as was amply demonstrated yesterday. I think the congressional midterms are going to be TOTALLY ugly, and who knows where we're headed from there.

There is a world of experience going on, and the experience is opposite each other.

The elites like John McCain say "what economic problems" because of the wealth of their experience, but the poverty of the experience on the other side of the coin says "what jobs, what home, what health care, what hope".

That is a mix that only needs a slight spark.

The Joe Slack spark was miniscule compared to more serious hardships some are going through.

That is why I say there is a personal edge, a personal abyss each individual has.

So the government and the right wing are playing with fire when they think everyone has the same breaking point then base the election and policy on that illusion.

"It is our patriotic duty to say ouch when we do not like government action, to protest, to try to vote the madness out of office; thus, to try to heal the government when it gets sick, so that citizens like Joe Slack do not loose the struggle and go off into madness as a result."

Hasn't this been our story for the last 200 + years?

At what level of violence and theft do we consider the government to be "healthy"?

"The IRS employees he could have killed are doing their jobs, following regulations, and following statutes."

Isn't this a restatement of the Nuremberg defense? "We were only following orders..."

There are a lot of Joe Slack's out there. However he displayed the wrong action. It is true that he got the attention of the government and society in general, but so has the Tea Party - no violence there.

Something has to be done. People are fed up with government, congress and Obama Spending.

Something has to be done. Something has to get the attention of the government.

Over 200 years ago - do you think King George would have been moved by talk, or government controlled court! No. It took blood and guts.

I do not condone that, but it is coming if things do not change.

No - that is not the proper solution and I do not encourage anyone to follow that pattern, but - it is an option when all other options fail.

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